[re: the lack of knowledgeable scholars working on the Conservative Bible Project]

The Greek and Hebrew languages are well understood and readily available to any internet user. In this electronic age a laptop and a browser are superior to (and fast than) the finest Greek/Hebrew scholar. Some may wince at that observation, but it's the same reason that sales of the Encyclopedia Britannica declined and Borders has gone bankrupt.

The real challenge to a Bible translation today is the ever-changing English language into which the Greek/Hebrew must be translated. English terms like "peace be with you" are constantly changing their meaning and a good translation has to have enough political savvy to react to liberal and atheistic biases that creep into language. See liberal creep!

The objection to the Conservative Bible Project is like saying an engineer should not try to build a bridge unless he first becomes a master in trigonometry. That objection doesn't work, because the trigonometry is well-understood and modern challenges in building a good bridge have little to do with sine and cosine functions.

The CBP stacks up favorably against any academic translation out there. You can pick a few verses, and so will I, and I bet CBP is better.

Funny: the same people who will tell you that the Bible has to be 'translated' into what they perceive as the modern context are the ones who will insist that US constitution has to be read literally as its 18th century authors intended: no interpretation allowed.

Of course, a Hebrew or Greek scholar could translate the nuance of meaning and the use of non-literal or slang terms, but since when has Andy Sh*tfly been concerned with details or accuracy?

P.S. If the CBP were published is physical volumes, one could at least use it as a booster seat or to prop up the bad leg of the sofa. Other than that, I can't think of a situation where the CBP "stacks up favorably."

Use of bad analogy. Therefore your objection to your critic's objection in saying that you are lacking in scholarly skills, certainly in your so-called 'Conservative Bible Project' doesn't work; after all, are you an Emeritus Professor in Theology, who has studied not only the main bodies of writings that make up the Bible as we know it, but the other myriad tomes of related works in not only Latin & Greek, but Aramaic - and for decades no less, thus your not only becoming a Professor, but an Emeritus one in the process?

It's so simple, even a monkey understands.

If you think your CBP can easily stand up to scrutiny, just send a copy of such to the hallowed halls of academia that are the Theology & Philosophy departments of Oxford & Cambridge universities here in the UK:

An engineer should not be building a bridge at all unless they are, you know, an engineer, in which case learning trigonometry is irrelevant because a mechanical engineer without a working knowledge of trigonometry is like a doctor without a working knowlege of the circulatory system. Trig is "well understood" in part because it's expected that by he time you get out of highschool, you will understand the basics. That you apparently think it's an obscure specialised field says a great deal about your homeschool "education."

Oooh - SO close to managing to realise a glaringly obvious point there Schafly.

Yes, the English language changes - what you fail to notice is that your use of it is different from how it was used in the past, instead assuming that the Ancient Greeks spoke Greek exactly the same as you currently speak English and that everyone else is wrong.

I would be wary of any bridge built by an engineer who does not understand trigonometry. Sine and cosine functions are necessary to determine the pressures and stresses that components of the bridge are subject to, and the resonance frequencies of individual parts so that they interfere rather than building up like a certain bridge over the Tacoma Narrows. Heck, if I were responsible for funding the building of any structure, I'd fire any engineer who says, "Wait, is that SOH CAH TOA or COH SAH TOA?"

the hallowed halls of academia that are the Theology & Philosophy departments of Oxford & Cambridge universities

Interestingly enough, with a few prominent exceptions theologians usually aren't very good at Greek and Hebrew. Albeit to a milder degree, they tend to suffer from the same illness that ails Mr. Schlafly.

They generally subscribe to a grammar filled with undifferentiated solutions for complex problems and rely heavily on the "special case" translations in the main dictionaries (Liddell-Scott, Gesenius, etc.). We called that "theologian grammar".

Theologians learn not to ask critical questions. They accept superficial explanations much too quickly, especially when those solutions fit their intent. They think the Bible has to be unambiguous and don't readly accept cases that are wide open to debate.

Um, no, Schlafly, you're wrong. Even an amateur linguist such as myself can list a million different ways in which you are wrong. How dumb must you be to think that someone who does not know Hebrew or Greek is better-suited to translate the Bible than people who know those languages? Besides, isn't it true that you don't look at the original languages at all, but just go through the KJV and change words and phrases in it that you don't like? God does not approve of that, Schlafly. The Bible itself says so.

And Schlafly, advanced mathematics (especially calculus... which you need to know trigonometry in order to understand) is required for one to be an engineer. After all, people's lives depend on the engineers designing stable structures, and they can only make sure they're stable with proper math. I am taking physics, (which one would need in order to build a stable bridge) and sine and cosine functions are needed when dealing with vectors. Even your analogy fails. That's kind of impressive.

True to your screename as per usual. Still, even they know infinitely more than Andy Schaftafly though.

Who is too busy building a bridge even longer than that in China, as we speak, to be able to object to the aforementioned objection...! [/hyper-sarcasm]

...or to publish his aforementioned Conservative Bible Project & distribute to bookshops for sale to the public. Which includes those in the mainstream of right-wing Fundamentalist Christianity in the US.

Y'know, Andy: Conservatives. Just. Like. You.

Whassamatter, Andy? Surely your CBP would stand up to their scrutiny?! Seeing as almost all of them consider the KJV to be the definitive, final, unchangeable Word of God. I'm sure they would refer you to those last two verses of Revelation, at the very end of the NT. Y'know, Andy: 22:18-19, just in case you've forgotten.

an engineer should not try to build a bridge unless he first becomes a master in trigonometry.

This analogy is highly flawed. While in engineering school, I studied transistor theory and basic design (ie. common-collector/base/emitter, self vs. fixed bias, current mirrors, etc.). That didn't mean I suddenly could design a quality audio amplifier after successfully completing the course. It took many other classes on various related subjects (ie. control theory, thermodynamics, etc.) and years of experience (mostly trial and error) to be able to design such complex devices.

After 15 years of being out of school and about 20 years in high-end audio, my latest amplifier contains 19 transistors, 37 resistors, a small smattering of capacitors and I'm still not completely satisfied with the results. Looks like it's back to the ol' drawing board for me.

Fortunately, audio amps are rather clandestine objects by comparison and won't kill people if they collapse. ;-)

English -> Greek -> English:
For the God that is loved thus the world that it only gave his one and son, that believes in it will be lost but has the eternal life.

Again I say to you, it easier for a camel is to pass from the eye of needle [ap]'? what for a rich person in order to it imports the kingdom of God.

Yeah. Those translators work so well. I used to work for a server hosting company. We had customers all over the world. They used online translators to submit trouble tickets:
"I am Bravo to accustom in computer IP, but but task United States antenna Italy rows badly time!"

And that's not even touching on you twisting the message of the book you claim to worship.

I like the Literal Translation myself. If it's the literal word of God, then why not have the literal translation of the Hebrew and Greek, as pure as you can get it?
What these people are really trying to do is re-write it to suit their own biases. It's a desperate attempt to avoid the cognitive dissonance that comes from realizing that the political view of the gospellers are completely different from their own.

>>The Greek and Hebrew languages are well understood and readily available to any internet user. In this electronic age a laptop and a browser are superior to (and fast than) the finest Greek/Hebrew scholar. <<

Adding to the more obvious fail in this statement, Schlafly isn't even giving the right languages for the Bible. The original texts were written in what we call Biblical Hebrew, Koine Greek, and Biblical Aramaic - and Jesus spoke primarily Aramaic, so even the oldest Koine Greek texts are already translations of whatever he actually said.